The Stars in Shroud Author:Gregory Benford Capt. Ling Sanjen sufferd thru a mutiny that dishonord him, an illness that nearly destroyed him and a war that redeemd him. A Caucasian in a post-apocalyptic world where Orientals rule, Sanjen's a social misfit. His career as a fleet captain ends when he makes the mistake of being right while everyone else is wrong & gets co... more »urtmartialed on the word of his trusted 2nd-in-command, the unscrupulously ambitious Tonji. Only after surviving a long bout with despair is Sanjen able to function again. Ignoring Sanjen's advice, the Empire gets embroiled in a one-sided war with the mysterious beings known as the Quarn, with catastrophic results. It's at this point that Tonji, now his superior, sends him to supervise the defense of a remote planet called Veden. Sanjen must survive assassination attempts, civil unrest, religious fanatics, mind control and seemingly endless treachery. The alien Quarn struck suddenly at the heart of Earth's interstellar Empire; their weapon a deadly plague, a soul-twisting assault that stripped away the veneer of civilization, and sent its victims fleeing back a million years to the safety of the ancestral caves. No one knew how the Quarn spread the plague. No one knew why they wanted to destroy humanity. But Captain Ling Sanjen had thought of a way to stop them.« less